Census reveals more people identify as Jedi Knights than atheists

The number of Jedi Knights appears to have nearly halved in the last decade, but still beats the amount of people who positively identify as atheists in England and Wales, according to results of the 2011 census.

In 2001, there was a campaign which encouraged people to answer the question with Jedi. Though, it appears that the force has weakened as 176,632 classified themselves as Jedi Knights, compared to 330,000 ten years ago.

However, it still remains to be the largest single category after the leading faiths of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism.

There seems to have been an increase in people of England and Wales who are leaving religion, as 14 million stated that they have no faith. Yet, Christianity still retains the largest amount of the population – even though it fell from 72 per cent to 59 per cent.

Despite this, the census showed the greatest diversity of faith ever seen as over 240,000 people selected ‘other religion’; 6,242 answered that they believe in Heavy Metal, 1,893 said that they were Satanists and 698 chose New Age.

The census also showed religions like Wicca and Rastafarian coming into the top 15, at 11,766 and 7,906 respectively.

Most of these religions scored higher than Scientology. Scientology has become more popular over recent years and even boasts a London HQ and high street branches. Some of its famous members include Tom Cruise, Will Smith and John Travolta.